


MAHJONG - BICYCLE - KYOTO (AU)

by Spinifex



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - RomCom, Come on a fanfic adventure to Japan with me, Cycling, Expats in Japan, F/F, First Dates, It the Mahjong-Cycling AU that nobody asked for, Kyoto, RomComCliches For The Win, This is the New Tourism. Because we're not allowed outside., Uberfic, mahjong, onsens, sake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29259189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinifex/pseuds/Spinifex
Summary: The Star Trek AU RomCom that pretty much does what it says on the tin.In which...- Mahjong is played- Bicycles are ridden- Romantic Comedy Clichés are heavily, heavily visited, and- Everyone on the crew lives mostly in Kyoto(also featuring an excessive background research blog)
Relationships: Agnes/Rios (background), Hugh/Elnor (background), Raffi Musiker/Annika Hansen (Seven of Nine), Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 16
Kudos: 13
Collections: Femslash February, Star Trek Rom Com





	1. Mahjong

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jazzfic and Regionalpancake for critiquing the draft and providing top tips and other suggestions.  
> If you're interested, this story also has a worldbuilding/background research blog where I post all the stuff I'm finding out about Japan & Kyoto as I look up stuff for the story :D It lives here on tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spinifexmbkau

**Chapter 1: Mahjong**

Sitting around the low table at Agnes’s apartment in Sakatecho, the hot gaze of the kotatsu’s tiny heater warms their skin against the autumn evening. A quilted blanket covers their knees, draped down from the table’s edges. Holds in the heat that it is making, turning all four people into happy human dumplings. The city lights and traffic noise are muted behind glass windows and thick blue curtains. In the kitchen, the detritus of kake udon bowls and hot sake poured for four is stacked inside the sink. The garbage man will come by tomorrow morning. Very early. 

After fifteen months of living in Japan, Raffi’s started getting used to it by now. 

When the little icon slides up on her phone, Raffi stares at it for long enough that the others have set up the tiles and are waiting impatiently for her to take her first turn. 

“Are you gonna move or what?” Agnes complains, opposite her. Her eyes are wide and her teeth are smiling. Dimples pressed into her cheeks. A short bob of blonde hair curls loose around her chin, and her soft white t-shirt drapes down over her shoulders as she lifts them in an enthusiastic shrug.

To Agnes’s left, Soji takes a second to shift her Mahjong pieces into some semblance of order, picking out the tiles she likes with delicate movements and stacking the ones she’s intent on rejecting into careful piles. A rapid glance and shy half-smile flicked Raffi’s way, as the postgrad listens quietly to their bickering.

Across from Soji, between Raffi and Agnes, Hugh laughs and tries to look at Raffi’s screen by leaning over in his chair. He lets out an amused hum of interest as he looms closer. His fingers twitching on the tablecloth, the old scars that line his knuckles flushing white, then pink as he relaxes them.

“Alright, alright!” Raffi snatches the phone away from him before he can see, and flips it over without turning it off. Letting the screen glow face-down on the tabletop. She slaps a tile into the center of the reject pile and takes a new one from the eastern wall.

They’re moving counter-clockwise, still barely understanding how the game is played. Mostly, they’re working on Wikipedia instructions and Agnes’s razor-sharp enthusiasm. She got the bug from her colleagues at work. She’s been intent on having the rest of them hooked on the game ever since. Raffi’s happy to indulge her. Though, collecting matching sets of tiles with sheer dumb luck is still sadly Raffi’s go-to. She’s yet to develop any cunning strategies with which to take her opponents down.

“What was the one with the circles again?” Raffi asks, turning her new tile to the table and wiggling it left and right.

Soji frowns at it thoughtfully. “Uh. Bamboo. I think?”

“No, that’s Dots.” Agnes reaches abruptly across the table and snatches the tile from Raffi’s fingers. She picks up one of her own tiles, and holds both pieces beside each other. “The Bamboo has the bird for number one.”

Agnes hands the tile back and Raffi accepts it, feeling no more enlightened than she was a second ago, “Of course it does.”

Soji looks at her expectantly. Hunched ever so slightly in her chair, “do you intend to keep it or discard?” Her hands are pressed against her lap, the cotton of her long-sleeved shirt pulled tight along her arms.

Raffi looks at her sets, and then at her new tile…then decides she hasn’t got a sufficient clue to call it either way and tucks it snug beside the others. A colourful little mystery for an enigmatic pile. She gives a one-shouldered shrug and a smirk, “I’ll keep it. I still have no idea what’s happening. So, what the fuck, huh?”

Beside her Hugh huffs, “language!” and tugs at the hem of his shirt. It’s crisp and buttoned neatly to his throat, as though it hasn’t been two hours since he got out of the office. Neat, save for the part that he’s pulled loose from his waistband. The man does demure without even trying. Naturally, Raffi responds by rolling her eyes and not sticking out her tongue, but it is a very close thing regardless.

As the game proceeds Raffi’s attention keeps drifting to her phone. It’s no longer glowing against the table. The screen has long since gone to sleep, but she knows that the alert is there. Begging her to look. She picks up new tiles, puts the bad ones down. Or at least, the ones she assumes are the bad ones. (It could go either way). Her phone rests benignly, a glass and plastic rectangle of high-tech innocuousness. Her left hand twitches.

At the opposite end of the table Agnes slaps a tile down with a thud, making the stacked pieces tremble in the two remaining walls and Soji startle in her seat. “Jesus, fuck, would you just look at your phone already? You’re driving me insane!”

“Hopefully not much more than usual,” Hugh says lightly, though his nose wrinkles at her fruity words. He takes the edge off Agnes’s outburst with a fond look in Raffi’s direction. Soji fiddles with her pieces, setting the edges of her neat rows straight again. 

Then from Hugh, “What is it that has you so distracted anyway?”

Raffi grimaces at having caused such disruption but still reaches for her phone. She flicks the screen on with her finger and keys in her passcode. The alert is still there. Obviously. But she hesitates before touching it, “It’s stupid really.”

Soji leans towards her. She tilts her chin upward, the movement tiny. “What is?”

Instead of tapping on the alert screen, Raffi opens up the app. “I met someone on my ride today. I, uh-”

Agnes is unmoved, muttering low in Japanese. She’s the most fluent speaker of all of them, working at the Daystrom Institute of Cybertechnology. “You meet people on your rides all the time. What’s so great about this one?”

With a sigh, Raffi flicks over to the new contact that’s been burning a hole into her app, though she ignores the tiny circular icon at the corner of the screen that indicates a brand new message has arrived. She sets the phone down atop the discarded Mahjong pieces so that everyone can see. Then waits for the inevitable teasing to begin.

Surprisingly, it’s quiet, timid Soji who pounces first. She reaches across the table and takes Raffi’s phone in both her hands, tucking a strand of shiny dark hair away from her cheek. “What? No - that’s Annika Hansen!” she gasps, when she realises that the other woman is listed as a friend on Raffi’s profile. “Holy shit. She’s added you? How did you manage that?” She makes a long-vowelled noise of admiration. Her small mouth curving round then tight. 

Agnes’s expression goes flat with surprise and she yanks the phone from Soji’s grip to see the evidence for herself. It’s pretty funny to watch the way her eyes go wide, Raffi must admit. A gasp of disbelief pulls through her chest as she leans over to Hugh, who’s been tugging on Agnes’s arm to make her share the screen with him too. His wry grin is approving. “I’ve heard of her,” he says, “she’s good.”

Agnes huffs and slaps at Hugh. Then makes to hand the phone back over to Raffi, affronted. “Good? She’s only the best Cyclocross racer since-”

Soji interrupts Agnes at her normal, softer volume, “I’ve watched a couple of her races. On T.V. Annika Hansen is a real inspiration.”

Hugh lifts his hands in supplication. “Fine. I stand corrected, she’s a cycling genius. But anyway Raffi, how did you meet her?”

“I was riding down to Kitano this morning,” she says, recalling the bright sun and the cold breeze on her way to the public baths. “She was with her training group. They were just out sightseeing and riding - I uh, didn’t recognise her at the time. We all stopped at the same place for coffee -” she stops to wave down an interjection from Agnes, “no not _together-_ together, obviously. And as we were leaving, she stopped me and asked if I could lend her an Allen key. And then, um. She asked for my number.”

Agnes looks flabbergasted, amazed, and confused. “So you gave her your Strava profile.”

“Well. I - didn’t want to assume.”

“But did she ask for your number or didn’t she?”

Hugh sits back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and giving a derisive snort. Amused, “A professional cyclist amongst a group of their own professional cycling colleagues asks if you can lend her a basic piece of cycling equipment and you’re not sure whether or not she was asking you out? Surely she or one of her teammates would be carrying their own.”

Soji hums, “Mmm. The premise is flimsy...” Her eyes are twinkling as she blinks at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Sounds like Hansen might have a thing for you.”

Well, now that they put it that way. Raffi can see where the flaw in her argument lies. 

She taps through the photographs on Annika Hansen’s profile. Some of them are P.R. shots, slickly produced and professional. Annika standing next to her bike, looking fierce in her Lycra. Blonde hair tied in a plait that hangs down between her shoulders. The deep blues of her eyes have been touched with movie-magic, which is also known as Photoshop. But they are no less enchanting than Raffi remembers. Sponsor logos are framed carefully on her chest and bicep. Origin Gas, Maddox Cubes, Cervelo.

Others are snaps taken by her team, or supplied by various event crews. Annika flying around a banked route. This time wielding a fearsome mountain bike. Sprays of grass and dirt arching out from the wildly spinning wheels. Banners for Bontrager and HIPPO blur their colours in the background. An intense scowl of concentration on Annika’s face, forearms tensed and sweaty, her fingers clenched around the handlebars. The way she’s braced half crouched against the pedals speaks of power and control. A honed strength trained into her core and thighs. She’s a beauty and a demon, dressed by Nukeproof and FOX. 

Raffi can’t believe her fortune - that someone like Annika could have an interest in her. Maybe that’s why she gave Annika her Strava profile, instead of her phone number, when she’d asked. 

Finally, Raffi bites the bullet and taps on the little icon that’s been distracting her attention for the duration of their game. She blinks at it stupidly, feels her mouth hanging open. 

“She wants to go to lunch.”

Soji looks excited, “when, tomorrow?” She wriggles forward a little. Puts her elbows on the table. For Soji, that’s practically bouncing in her seat. 

Raffi nods dumbly, still staring at the message on her phone. 

Agnes, who has never been one for patience and reflection, unless the subject involves nanotechnology, tuts and snatches the device from Raffi’s hands again. She looks at the screen, leaning over to share it with Hugh. Then says to Raffi, “Well what on Earth are you waiting for? Respond to her!”

Hugh flicks through some of the shots on Annika’s feed. “She’s an incredibly good looking woman.” His eyebrow is meaningfully raised. 

“You don’t even like women!” Raffi scoffs, to which Hugh rolls his eyes. 

“Perhaps, not romantically. But I’m not blind.” - behind her hand, Soji makes a gleefully strangled squee that sounds like ‘Elnor-sensei’, and then goes quiet. 

Hugh cuts a quick glance at her, censoring, then says to Raffi, “Just for that-” with an impish grin. 

Raffi watches with delayed horror as Hugh takes her phone off Agnes and starts typing a reply. She’s too slow to stop him from whatever he’s writing and hears the dreadful chime of confirmation from her phone that lets her know he’s just pressed send. 

“Hugh!”

He smiles beatifically, all sweetness and light, then passes Raffi’s phone back to her. “You’re going out with her tomorrow,” he declares. He deftly folds his hands against his lap, perfectly demure. 

Raffi scowls at him, and checks the damage on her phone. “You’re a menace, Hugh,” as Agnes dissolves into cackling howls at his side. Soji looks on with mild alarm, and just a hint of anticipation. 

Actually, the message that Hugh sent Annika is really not that bad. Simply offering a time and a place and a little winky-faced emoji. Raffi recognises the cafe’s name. She’s been there once before and it’s a nice one. They serve some of the best-loved udon noodles in Kyoto.

Hugh looks smug at Raffi’s reluctant smile as she clicks off her phone and shoves it deep into her jeans. His raised eyebrows silently challenge Raffi to argue. 

She declines. Instead, Raffi laughs. Short and breathy. Feels a blush rise across her cheeks and just as rapidly burn away. “Fine. We’ll see if she’s up for it,” she says. Then grudgingly, “Thank you Hugh.”

*

Later, Raffi’s heading home through the chilly night, leaving Soji at Keage station to travel on to Misasagi. Soji promises to text her when she arrives home, to pat her little dog Dango (whose name translates to ‘dumpling’), and pass on regards to her elder sister.

A warm hat covers Raffi’s shocking curls and her breath mists out beneath the yellow street lamps as she walks the few short meters from Keage station to her apartment. This late at night, the city is quieter. Muted: dozing but not empty. Autumn leaves flutter. The occasional dog barks sharp and loud. A group of office workers wind their karaoke and gin-soaked stumble home. Raffi side-steps them and listens to their incoherent banter. Ruddy-cheeked and cosy in each other’s arms.

_(Oh Elder brother Kenta! My greatest friend! Teacher Su zu-oop! -pardon, - hmm, oh - pardon me. Teacher Suzuki- you are so wise! Yes. Oh...yes-yes-yes. I must do that tomorrow...)_

Their voices mingle as they wobble down the path. 

There are needle-sharp conifers and dainty maples draped in vibrant splashes over shadowed garden walls: concrete cracking. Emerald green and burnt-paper orange which dulls brownish in the night. The flower pots outside people’s houses shelter cherished trees. Their sticks protruding bare and spindly as the season turns. Always nearby as she wanders home, the Keage incline forest rustles: Damp and fresh and resin-sweet. 

Raffi has always liked these...things. Experiences. The bursts of strange life and shouting colour that remind her that she’s no longer living in the States, so near to the wounded gazes of her ex-husband. Her estranged son. - But in baffling, distant Kyoto. In a place as foreign and otherworldly as Japan. Here she can spread her wings and breathe a little while.

Her phone jolts in her pocket as she’s unlocking her front door. Fingers chilled against the handle. The little chime that follows confirms a text arrived. Raffi toes her shoes off and tucks them into the box beside the door. 

Jacket. Beanie. Fingerless gloves. She hangs them in her closet. Slides the tall, slim, wooden door shut. 

She juggles with her keys and wallet with a yawn, and digs her phone out of her pants. She is so ready for bed. Briefly kicks the heater on, sets the timer to switch off in thirty minutes, making sure it will flick back on in the morning when she wakes. She holds her phone and clicks it, taps the text alert with her heartbeat thrumming. Then smiles. (Oh!) A little thrill of something hot and happy in her chest. It makes her shiver. It’s almost too good to be true. 

From Annika Hansen’s profile: a smiley-face, a ‘yes’. A note to confirm the time. And then, like an afterthought. Clearly written. Three words:

<It’s a date.>


	2. Udon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's beta readers were Regionalpancake, Jazzfic and Butchcraftmacncheese. Thank you <3

Raffi listens vaguely to her earbuds as she’s riding. One ear on the music, and both eyes on the road. At certain intervals, Miko-chan, the map A.I., voices peppy instructions to turn left in three hundred meters, or as she enters a pedestrian crossing, to ‘please take care!’

The sun on Raffi’s face is bright, but the chill in the air is sharper. In daylight the city is a blaze of autumn foliage. Trees sit at the precipice of the season, where the colours teeter boldly in their red and rust and golden like living embers. Soon there will be drifts of burnt sienna, life fading from the leaf litter, quietly gone. The brazen limbs undressed to spite the conifers’ jade. In the coming weeks past that, the winter will slide in. A different kind of beauty: whose colour wheel is white and grey, and begs for quiet contemplation. 

There’s a tiny creeping smile on Raffi’s lips as she turns the narrow path that will take her up the canal-route towards Higashiyama Jisho-Ji, alongside the ancient Philosopher’s trail. The trees are bolder here. Established. Their branches dangle down, wet leaves layer the path. All sorts of people rush or stroll along beside her. Eager tourists, enchanted locals. Old and young and in-between. She’s looking forward to her date, despite Hugh’s interference. She’s nervous, sure, but she’s also fairly certain today will be nothing but good. 

Raffi thinks back on yesterday morning with a pleasant shiver: 

_The smooth rhum of the road beneath her wheels, pedals whirring. Stopping at the cafe and seeing the cycling group pull up. Nods and polite acknowledgments as they locked their bikes and hooked helmets over handlebars. The woman (Annika) looked back over her shoulder with a startled smile as she walked past Raffi. Her teammates paused just short of a collision, side-stepping the person in their path. Raffi smiled back. Utterly charmed without a reason. Noticing the other woman’s eyes._

_Inside the cafe, Raffi sauntered to the counter and bought coffee. Sipped at it alone. Across the room from her, the cyclists took a table at the opposite window. Raffi caught the blonde one looking at her from the corner of her eye. A muffled comment from one companion, then teasing banter as the woman’s friends started joshing her, pushing at her arm. Raffi turned her ears from them._

_Sat back against her chair and drank._

_Finished in her own time and went to leave._

_Absently, Raffi heard the hurried sound of a chair scraping. Then muffled shouts and laughter followed her outside. She jumped when someone cleared their throat behind her, while she was going through the motions of unlocking her bike. It was the blonde cyclist. The woman who smiled at her earlier. She looked toned and fit and very pretty. A loose strand of her hair shifted beside her ear. Those gorgeous eyes._

_Raffi raised her eyebrows, half-way through unlocking. Unspoken: ‘Yes?’_

_The woman fidgeted, looking sheepish now. “Hi. I wondered if I could, that is, if you could…”_

_A pause that felt unfathomably awkward. The woman’s hands went to her hips, her teeth bit at her lip. Then, “-maybe if you could lend me an allen key? I need one for my-” a self-conscious cringe. The moment twanging, “-bike?”_

_“Ye - what?” (honest confusion), “Oh, yeah, sure. Okay. Let me just get it.” Raffi fumbled in her post bag for the device, then handed the hex-tool over. Her fingers wrapped around the silver pieces as they would swing around if not contained. The blonde woman’s cool hand brushed hers. A light touch that swiped the back of Raffi’s fingers as she took the proffered keys._

_Instead of putting them to immediate use, like Raffi (or any reasonable person) expected, the woman blushed and fidgeted with the keys. To Raffi’s surprise, she handed the key set back almost immediately. She didn’t even move towards her bike. But before Raffi could think enough to ask her, the woman said, “actually. I don’t really need them. I - I panicked. I was really hoping to get your phone number instead?”_

_Raffi took back her allen keys, still struggling to catch up with the conversation. There was no way she’d heard that right. Nevertheless, her hands were taking out her phone, ignoring anything her conscious mind said. “Uh, sure. Yeah, that’s fine. I have Strava.”_

_The blonde’s face fell, “-oh,” though Raffi barely noticed it. Quite flustered, Raffi shared her Strava profile, took back her phone and said goodbye, assuming that would be the end of it._

_Until last night._

*

When she reaches the corner of Ishibachi-cho, Mi’-chan declares that she’s arrived. Raffi finds a place to park her bicycle outside the building. Its outward features are traditional: Thin slats of wooden de-goshi shade the windows below the eaves. The brown tiles of the ichimonji unite the outline of the building with its peers along the streetscape. There is one lonely, crooked bonsai with small leaves like orange gloss, close to the entrance. A signboard reads ‘Omen’ (‘noodles’) in Hiragana above the door and lazy noren banners hang below it. A group of other customers walk through. Two Japanese, and two taller, fairer-haired and wide-eyed people close behind. The noren catch at dust and sunlight like they’re supposed to, (and at the unsuspecting tourists’ heads and shoulders, like they’re not). The familiar cries of greeting usher them inside. (“Irasshaimase!”)

Raffi dithers as she finishes locking up her bike behind the building, revisiting yesterday’s awkwardness. She takes a breath. Touches her hair and fiddles with the hemline of her favourite sweater. Tucks down the pocket-linings of her jeans where they scrunched up while she was riding, shoving her fingers in between the folds of denim and then dusts off her boots before she rises. Annika probably feels the same anxiety, Raffi supposes. After all, the other woman was the one to ask her out in the first place. Raffi can’t speak for her directly, having only met Annika just one time, but the act of even asking a stranger for their number must have taken some doing. 

So. She takes another deep breath in. Pushes the tension through her lungs, a soothing hand over her stomach. The date will be either mediocre, or it will go very well. But Raffi will not discover anything until she walks back to the front door of the restaurant and waits for Annika to arrive. 

*

The wait lasts barely more than two minutes. But to Raffi, she stands around for what feels like hours before her date arrives. At first, Raffi spots someone whom she assumes is just another person walking briskly down the street. Tall. Female. Subtly curvaceous and nicely dressed in warm-looking clothes. For a moment Raffi watches appreciatively, feeling guilty as she does so. Expects the random stranger to turn down some other street while she continues waiting, languishing in this autumn cold. (Well, perhaps nothing quite so dramatic. You understand the gist of it, though). Then with a start, Raffi recognises her. It’s Annika. Her full mouth curved into a sunny smile. And as she gets closer, - _oh - those lovely eyes_.

Annika stops just two steps shy of Raffi then looks her over, still smiling. She tilts her blonde head to the side and reaches out for Raffi’s hand. 

Raffi lets her take it, moving instinctively. Annika squeezes once and then lets go, before Raffi knows what’s happening. Annika’s grip is firm and fleeting. She brushes over Raffi’s knuckles with her thumb. 

“Hey,” says Annika. “I’m glad you’re here.” She sounds relieved and happy as she looks at Raffi once again. “I worried that you wouldn’t come. Seeing as you don’t know me.” That smile again, blue eyes roving up and down. “You look nice.”

Raffi bites her bottom lip, seconds away from stupid-grinning. She almost lets it happen anyway. Her cheeks pull tight with feeling. She ducks her head: chest to chin and up again. “You look good too,” Raffi says. Then, feeling cheeky, “I might have checked you out while you were walking over. I know, I know,” in response to Annika’s approving eyebrow, “I’m awful. Did it take you long to get here?”

Annika’s squashed-down giggle is ridiculously charming as she responds to Raffi’s tease. “No, not long. I took the bus down. My team mates share a house with me in Nishi...hmm. What was it? Oh yes, in Nishijin, by the castle.” She looks up through her lashes, a little shy now, “We only moved in a few weeks ago. New neighbourhood, you know? I was so distracted trying not to miss the right bus station on the way here I barely noticed anything along the way.-” She pauses. 

Blushing, “- I never really caught your name in all our hurry yesterday. Your profile said Raffaella?”

“Call me Raffi.”

A nod, “Raffi. Okay. I’m Annika. Sorry I kind of demanded your phone number and then ran off yesterday.” 

“Hmm.” Ah, the stupid grin breaks free and Raffi lets it happen. “Same. That was one of the most confusing pickup lines that I’ve experienced. Do you use it often?”

The awkwardness between them crumples into something more relaxed and friendly. “Only for special occasions,” Annika says. A little smirk that hides a grin, eyes sparkling. 

“Heh,” Raffi says. 

*

“-n of Izu Mountain was on my followers list!” Raffi is saying as she reaches across to refill Annika’s rice wine. The sake bottle is sandy-grained stoneware with a pattern of lotus pods reaching up through broad green leaves. Their porcelain cups are small and squatly-round to match. They’ve been led through by a waitress to the zashiki dining area, removing their shoes to walk towards the low-slung tables across the tatami. They sit upon cushions laid out on the floor. 

Annika laughs at Raffi’s retelling of the moment she got home and realised that she’d been picked up by Annika Hansen, renowned cyclist, and being flabbergasted that she’d failed to recognise Annika in the first instance. They tap their sake cups together and sip the strong, sweet liquor in amicable silence. Then one of them - or maybe both of them, ends up shifting closer on the floor cushions as they put their cups back down. There are but a few centimeters of space left on the tatami beneath their fingers and Raffi wonders if perhaps she’s already had too much wine, if she’s already melting casually into her dining partner’s space like this. 

If Annika notices, she doesn’t seem to mind. Neither moves her hand away. 

“So have you been here long?” Annika asks, as Raffi watches her absentmindedly trace around the edges of her cup.

“In Japan or Kyoto?”

“Either, both,” a disarming little grin as fleet as mercury, and then Annika picks up her half-full sake and downs it quick. A hissing sound as Annika sucks air between her teeth, then a hum of satisfaction as she appreciates the taste. 

The meal arrives as Raffi answers. The waitress unloads dishes onto the table before them, one by one. The strain in her forearm becomes lighter as she moves each object from her tray, onto the table. Her small hand shifts at the base of the tray to adjust to the balance of the dwindling load. 

First off are glistening udon noodles nestled inside two wooden bowls. The cooked strands steaming from their hot-to-cold water plunging. A plate each of prawns and beans and mushrooms draped in gold tempura batter. One long blue rectangle holds artfully arranged pickles: carrots cut into round half-suns. Garlic cloves- white and soft with furled young leaves attached. Strips of cold spring onions pressed into a curling pile. Then steamed, rolled cabbage with crumpled leaves almost translucent. Beside them, three peaks of muted colour: one daikon, one ginger, one mekabu seaweed. Each pile is either purely green, or white, or yellowy-brown. A small bowl of julienned carrots and cabbage leaves crowds the end of the plate. Its contents mixed with a shining coat of sesame oil. Finally the waitress hands each of them a bowl of inky broth, gives a polite nod, then leaves them to consider their meal.

“Oh wow, let’s dig in.”

Raffi scoops condiments and noodles into her broth as she returns to Annika’s original question. “About eighteen months, give or take.” The tempura goes in amongst the udon and spring onion curls. Its crisp skin sizzles faintly as Raffi dips it, stirs, then pulls it from the broth. Forgets to blow first and ends up burning the roof of her mouth and her tongue. Her eyes water as she chews the mouthful, breathing urgently and fanning at her face. The motion is futile and she swallows sheepishly to Annika’s earnest concern. 

“Are you alright?” Annika’s warm hand comes to rest on Raffi’s shoulder, then slides around to stroke her back. Raffi feels every second of that light pressure. Soft as a caress.

Breathlessly: “I’m fine, I’m fine.” 

Raffi reaches for the water at the far end of the table, pours out a glass and swallows it. A gasped sigh of relief as it soothes the edges of the burn. She gestures at the tempura with her chopsticks. Rueful. “Careful. That dish is hot.”

Annika glances over with a curious quirk of one eyebrow that Raffi is starting to recognise as a trademark. Smoothly Annika says, “Should I be offering to kiss it better?”

The chopsticks clatter as Raffi drops them, then roll against the table as she hastens to pick them up. Annika is smirking. The pleased curve of her lips is obscured by her sake cup as she uses it to cover her smile. Mercifully, Annika changes the subject back to Kyoto, with a quick laugh and a quiet “maybe later then,” as a start.

“So you work here, or?” says Annika. She pointedly blows carefully on her tempura before putting it into her mouth, and Raffi makes a face at her. 

“I work in languages,” Raffi begins, aiming only to talk about work and not delve into the harder subjects. Such as her ex (because no-one should do that on a first date), or her tattered relationship with her adult son. Anyway, the only person from her pre-Kyoto life who really knows anything about all that...fiasco - is her old friend Cris (Cris Rios: whom drunken Agnes once claimed she would happily ride into the sunset if he’d just stay put for long enough, because _damn_. _She’s never slept with the captain of anything before..._ ), and he’s barely ever around Kyoto these days (much to Agnes’s chagrin). 

“Trade negotiations, government stuff. Mostly Agriculture - translating and liaising with the Japanese ministry and our guys. A position opened up a while ago and I jumped at the chance. You know? I’ve been studying Japanese language since I was a kid. Carried on with it through high school and university - sort of a hobby. Getting better and better at it, but not really intending it to use it as a career. Now I’m here and I don’t plan on looking back.” 

She looks up at Annika with an intrigued smile. “How about you?”

Annika’s fingers are all clumsy with her chopsticks as she eats, and Raffi wonders if she should (maybe?) offer to help out with her food. 

“Well as you probably already know, I’m here with my cycling team,” Annika says, finally giving up on the noodle she’s been fumbling. She uses her chopsticks in both hands to twirl them into the udon like you would do with a fork. It’s awkward and terribly inefficient, but Raffi admires Annika’s perseverance as she finally corrals some noodles into a knot between her chopsticks with a satisfied huff of triumph. 

“We’re here for the Pacific Cycling Classic, essentially,” Annika explains, “but we’re also hoping to pick ourselves up some sponsorship deals to keep the group up and running. You know?” She shrugs thoughtfully. Twirls udon around her chopsticks again. “It’d be nice to get enough interest here to make professional cycling our day jobs.”

Raffi watches her, thinking. “Is that hard to get done?” 

Wryly, “oh, yeah. Like you wouldn’t believe. I work my ass off in between seasons just to get a chance to compete. This race is almost like a holiday. Except for the part with the rigorous training.”

Something hard settles in Raffi’s gut. “A holiday. How long are you staying?” 

Those blue eyes flick towards Raffi without making eye contact. “Another two months- if the sponsorships fall through. Longer if can get signed on to some good ones.” Annika’s left hand covers Raffi’s right one, resting on the table beside her abandoned bowl. Carefully, “...will that be a problem?”

Raffi blinks. Once, twice. Then summons up a smile, because she’s being ridiculous. “I- no. No, of course not.” She can feel her smile creak at the edges. Reaches for more water just for something to do. “I can do casual. Casual is nice.” Her stuttered laugh is awkward. A little bit forced. 

Annika looks at her for a couple of seconds, then squeezes her hand without letting it go. “That’s great,” Annika says. She brushes the back of Raffi’s knuckles with her thumb. A tentative smile that’s brief but also glad. 

Raffi isn’t certain what to think of that, but she turns her palm upwards to wind Annika’s fingers around hers and squeezes back. Ignores the dull burn that quietly hoped for something other than what Annika wants to offer, but recognises that she’s being too romantic over this person who has literally just met her. Because it’s fine. Really. It’s all just fine. Annika is interested and she is attractive and that’s maybe all that Raffi needs right now. It’s only their first date. It’s only their first date. Hoping for anything more would be fairly unreasonable and probably weird and definitely greedy. So Raffi smiles broadly and agrees with her. 

“Yeah.”


End file.
